I actually use google docs a lot more now. It allows you to save in .doc, .odt,
.pdf and a few other common formats, but it also lets me edit documents on my
phone, print remotely over the internet (to the printer in my Bn) and I sort of
like the cloud aspect and platform independence. I think it probably depends on
your privacy preferences whether it's a viable option or not, but I'm pretty happy
with it.

RTF may be an easier format to work with, especially for the decompiling. I'm pretty sure I have a
couple different open source RTF->HTML converters sitting in various places on my HD from
previous experiments with formatting tools.

I would give valuable limbs in exchange for something that decompiled .doc/.docx to some sort of text markup so I could write in Emacs, and the compiled appropriately. In fact I've been thinking about using the Flutterby formatter to go to HTML, from HTML to .doc, and use that, at least for outbound writing.

Ah... if you were using Microsoft Office, you would have been trained through
negative reinforcement, to save often. And you rarely lose more than 30 minutes
worth of work because you can't get an entire morning's work done without a crash.

So reliability needs either be perfect or bad enough that you compensate well.